Facebook decides to become a games publisher

Facebook has decided it isn’t happy just being a platform for games, it wants to help publish and promote them, too. Of course, in return it wants a share of the revenue from each game it invests in.

To that end, the social network has launched a new pilot program called Mobile Games Publishing. It looks to be open to any small or medium sized developers, and already counts Brainbow, Kiwi, Space Ape on its books. Even Gameloft has signed up to reap the potential benefits.

What Facebook is offering includes targeting a game to find people who would enjoy playing it and therefore be willing to pay for it. Providing analytics tools and helping grow a game’s player base, and of course helping introduce each game to Facebook’s mobile user base, which sits at a very healthy 800 million per month.

While 800 million potential paying customers and extensive game promotion is sure to interest any and all game developers, we don’t know what the finer details of the deal is yet. Facebook hasn’t stated how much of a revenue share it expects to take by promoting your game, and it’s also unclear what “deep collaboration” actually means. Is Facebook going to start telling developers to change their gameplay, or force them to integrate Facebook adverts in order to receive support?

Whatever those details are, the Mobile Games Publishing pilot is sure to be popular simply because of its potential for game sales. In a few months we’ll likely be hearing about success stories and failures from the indie game community who decided to sign up.